


High Tide

by kaibasetos



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-29 02:02:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7666075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaibasetos/pseuds/kaibasetos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He feels as though he is sinking in the ebb and flow of them, too heavy and too much. He is a tangled mess of flotsam and jetsam. Not a life raft, but an anchor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	High Tide

**Author's Note:**

> Surprise Petshipping!
> 
> I have no profound explanation or motivation for this piece. I just really wanted to write this ship again, really wanted to write them kissing, really wanted to be sappy trash, and really wanted to write insecure and/or somewhat submissive Kaiba, so... This happened. I have to be up for work in five hours. I may have made some mistakes. Everything is fine.
> 
> Anyway, I know this isn't a particularly popular ship of mine (because it's not a particularly popular ship in general) but I hope everyone who requested more of them together -- and everyone who happens to read this regardless -- has a great time with it anyway, because I certainly did!

Kaiba scrutinizes his bedroom ceiling by the meager moonlight that creeps in through the curtains. If he stares for long enough he can imagine geometric shapes and abstract patterns bursting into existence there, a map of his soul scrawled in the architecture. The gentle hum of Jounouchi and Otogi talking over him and amongst themselves reminds him of a siren song, pulling him gently into a silent abyss where he is unaware of anything else but them.

He thinks of them as one would recall a vivid dream, and perhaps they are to him sometimes. Jounouchi with his hair of sunlight and his voice rough from all the years he’s spent shouting his demons into submission. Otogi with his eyes reflecting the seafloor and his touch too gentle for all the things that have fallen apart in his grasp. The contrast between them suits them, completes them, and Kaiba wonders what business he has to be in the center of their solar system, why it’s him they beckoned from the shadows.

They lie together as though they’ve always belonged this way. Kaiba’s back against the sheets, Jounouchi’s lips against Kaiba’s throat so that the huff of his every word can be transmitted in the form of a shiver, Otogi sprawled artlessly across him like he can’t bear any modicum of distance or detachment. He thinks somewhere beneath the blankets he can feel them holding hands, and he feels as though he is sinking in the ebb and flow of them, too heavy and too much. He is a tangled mess of flotsam and jetsam. Not a life raft, but an anchor.

His breath is a weight in his lungs, drowning him.

“You still with us?” Jounouchi asks, his voice slow and sweet like honey. Kaiba can feel the reverberation of the question where Jounouchi’s chest is pressed against him, the ghost of it lingering on his skin, the echo of it glowing through his veins.

“I have never left,” Kaiba says, and he can’t help but feel like he’s speaking through a mouthful of salt water.

“Maybe not physically,” Otogi interjects, just as soft, as though either of them believe raising their pitch will startle, overstimulate. They’re not entirely unjustified in making that assumption, Kaiba supposes. “Mentally, you checked out a while ago. What are you thinking so hard about?”

Kaiba can’t say he was thinking about them. Thinking about how they are both beautiful and reckless and ruinous without him, how they have emerged from their respective battles too good to be in a bed so tainted by the sensation of waking from night terrors in a cold sweat. He can’t say he was thinking about how he is too ruined to deserve them. Instead, he says, “Nothing important.”

“Then cut it out,” Jounouchi replies with a chuckle, pulling his hand away from Otogi’s to run it up the fabric of Kaiba’s shirt, over his ribs. Kaiba tenses instantly, fighting a torrid war against both the urge to jerk away and the urge to arch his back into the touch, and Jounouchi pauses with deliberate concern. “You’re not usually like this with us. You sure you’re okay?”

Even when he’s potentially making it far too obvious, Kaiba is still stricken by how perceptive Jounouchi is -- how perceptive they both are -- to the unpredictable shifts of his mood, to the way his nerves trap him between instinct and want. Oh, how he wants, how he wants to give himself over to sensation and let it overwhelm him, chase away the anxiety and doubt. It’s selfish, he feels. He neglects it.

They’re both so focused on him. He can feel every inch of the warmth they share. He exhales, attempting to unwind. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not,” Otogi corrects him, raising his hand to press his fingertips against Kaiba’s jaw and tilt Kaiba’s head towards him. Kaiba obeys the gesture without a second thought, and he always loses sight of how particularly observant Otogi is, how meeting his eyes feels like looking into a mirror. Otogi’s hair is dark and wild, his gaze patient and cunning, and he always knows. “You’re worrying about us again.”

Kaiba’s chest tightens like a vice. He clenches his jaw.

“Kaiba,” Jounouchi says with a tone that comes dangerously close to being sympathetic, perhaps even pitying. He shifts, grasping Kaiba’s shirt and pressing his lips to Kaiba’s neck, the best way he can communicate right now; he always was more physical than verbal. Kaiba can feel every part of himself light up in response, his hands clenching into fists, his nails digging into his palms, his heartbeat erratic and restless. “You gotta stop doin’ that all the time. D’you think you’d be here if we didn’t want you here?”

“Would I?” Kaiba asks before he can censor himself, strained with the effort of trusting.

“No, you wouldn't,” Otogi says patiently. He smiles, leaning up, and in one fluid movement he’s kissing Kaiba. Kaiba’s level of self-control is something he’s spent years honing, a craft he’s spent his whole life perfecting, but it slips through his hands the moment they engage him like this. Before he has time to think his fingers are tangled in the front of Otogi’s shirt and he’s leaning in and in and in, seeking comfort and reassurance in Otogi’s mouth on his, in the way Otogi kisses like he’s something dark and desired. There’s a sensuality to it that is reserved only for him. Otogi touches him like seduction and Jounouchi holds him tight like protection and he trembles, a hopeless victim of their high tide.

Otogi pulls back and Kaiba is left with a frantic and impulsive need that tears through him with abandon, makes him want to chase that longing down, but it only lasts for the space of a breath. As soon as Otogi lets him go Jounouchi takes him with a bit less delicacy, grabbing Kaiba’s hair to command his attention to the opposite side and kissing him harder, rougher. The way Jounouchi is with him feels loud, victorious, dousing any remaining vestige of rational thought in gasoline and brilliant flame. It’s not gentle but fierce, and Kaiba craves that right now. Jounouchi doesn’t leave room for him to analyze, forces him to be grounded in the feeling.

“We love you, Kaiba,” Otogi murmurs close to his ear, and Kaiba breaks away from the kiss with a sudden intensity that leaves him reeling, lost. He takes in a deep breath like he’s surfacing from underwater depths, and he must be looking at Jounouchi the same way because Jounouchi runs his fingers through Kaiba’s hair as though seeking to quieten him.

“Yeah,” Jounouchi grins. “We really do.”

Kaiba shifts his gaze away, unable to face him, unable to face anything but the blank canvas of his ceiling. He can’t think straight. His vision swims. There are no patterns here for him to decipher, no logic for him to break down, nothing but the way their words ignite him and leave him burning. He's never felt more alive, aware. He is not sinking in them but rushing alongside them, his nerves and his pulse racing too far ahead of him. Not an anchor, but the crash of their waves on an unknown shore. The rhythm says  _you do deserve this_.

“I know you can’t handle it,” Otogi is saying, and Kaiba can feel him watching, no doubt taking note of his most minute reactions. “But I think you need to hear it sometimes. Especially when you’re like this.”

Kaiba doesn’t answer him, primarily because he doesn’t want to admit how correct he is but partially because he doesn’t think he’s even capable of doing so without his voice shaking with pure emotion. Jounouchi stops sliding his fingers through Kaiba’s hair to instead glide them down, finding Kaiba’s hand and holding it as best he can in his position, and as though on cue, Otogi does the same on his opposite side. Kaiba can’t fight it, not right now, so he allows himself this. The feeling of inclusion, of connection, like he’s a distinctive and necessary part of a whole. The center of their solar system, vibrant and maybe even worthy.

“I think you need to hear it all the time,” Jounouchi adds, resting his head against Kaiba’s shoulder. “‘Cause it’s the only way to get you to stop being so stubborn about it.”

“I’m not being stubborn,” Kaiba protests without thinking. Jounouchi’s shoulders quake as he laughs.

“Glad to hear you’re alright enough to argue,” he says, but there is no teasing undertone to it. It’s more fond, as though this is the reaction he was hoping for and expected, and of course it was with Jounouchi. He’s always trying to get a rise out of Kaiba, always tempting fate to make sure Kaiba is distracted from whatever chaos is wreaking havoc with his intrusive thoughts. Kaiba finds familiarity in it, a sense of home.

“Do you think you’ll be alright enough to calm down?” Otogi asks. “You’re shaking.”

Kaiba closes his eyes, the stars behind his eyelids reminding him of the way it felt when they were kissing him, intoxicating and electric. He tries to quell the tremors taking hold of him, but it's difficult when they're so close to him, so caring, so  _loving_ , The phantom of the sentiment alone is enough to bring him sinking back to that depthless abyss that is no longer desolate and destructive, but now filled with scattered fragments he can no longer arrange into something coherent and sensible. He can’t dwell on anything right now, only the power and the meaning of their bodies surrounding him, and perhaps that’s just what he needed. They shatter his fear. It feels like contentment.

“I’m fine,” he reassures them for the second time.

It’s the sweetest triumph to know that he means it this time.


End file.
